


"Stay with me"

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Book 1: Game of Kings, Death Wish, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Major Character Injury, Prompt Fill, Self-Medication, Siblings, Suicide Attempt, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2021-01-26 22:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21381892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: Richard is too busy trying to figure out all the ways his brother has done wrong, and doesn't immediately notice what's happening in the bathroom of the holiday cottage they're hidden in.--Written for Whumptober 2019, set in the Band AU I've been writing (see collections).--There's 31 of these ficlets and I apologise profusely for burying other work in the tags. I will *always* tag these as 'the band au' and you can usethis nifty extension (ao3rdr)to block the tag if this isn't your thing and isn't what you want to see in the Lymond tags!
Kudos: 8
Collections: Ficlets in the Lymond Band AU for Whumptober 2019





	"Stay with me"

**Author's Note:**

> [ Originally posted on tumblr, October 17 2019.](https://notasapleasure.tumblr.com/post/188404254839/whumptober-17)

Richard stood on the other side of the thin door in the holiday home. It was open a crack so his voice could travel, but drawn almost closed to give the illusion of privacy (though as the locks had been removed, this was a poor enough illusion anyway). Inside the bathroom he heard his brother shift with discomfort, his breath a rasp.

He had been testing the watermark of Lymond’s emotion. Pressing points he could not be proud of, invoking friends let down and punished for standing by his faithless, cynical brother. It made Lymond spit defensively, it chipped away at the veneer of noble suffering that Richard imagined his brother wore as casually as one of his gaudy stage outfits.

“You are a coward, Francis.” Richard told him once more. “If I hadn’t caught you, you would be halfway to your friends in Dublin by now. Smuggled back to the mob in a crate of bullets and cocaine.”

Something rattled on a shelf in the bathroom and Richard peered in. Lymond stood over the toilet bowl with his hands on the cabinet attached to the wall behind. His head was down, the blonde curls falling protectively between his expression and the door. The bandages around his ribs had begun to sag with a lack of expert attention, and their pinkish hue indicated that the wound in his side had not yet closed fully.

As though this, too, was a deliberate affectation, Richard scoffed and leaned away, the post of the doorframe digging uncomfortably between his shoulder blades, his arms folded as he glared at the Artex on the ceiling. “It’s pathetic. You think the way to change people’s minds is with threats and bombs? What happened to bettering the world through music? Oh but you’d have to stand up and proclaim your position. Own up to your views and let others challenge them. And I guess your way is easier than honesty, isn’t it, Francis?”

Behind him, the tap ran, pipes squeaking in the cheap post-war construction.

The voice that finally answered was so quiet it was nearly swept away by the running water. “When I have been honest you refused to believe me. What motivation have I for being so now?”

Another series of noises made Richard scowl with suspicion. He turned to lean into the door, a mocking observation on Lymond’s interpretation of the truth poised ready on his lips. He held onto it when he surveyed the scene though, sensing that something had changed before he knew quite what it was.

Lymond’s arms were pale trunks of sinew that latched onto the edges of the sink, a shaking in his elbows and the blue veins bulging as he fought to hold himself up. The violent shivering appeared across different locations of his body, where he could not always control it, working its way free at the joins and crooks of his form. His hair trembled like autumn foliage around his face and neck and his flanks strained as if against something crushing down on him.

Richard approached with a single slow step, half-suspecting a new act as he peered into the ruddy, sweat-beaded face of his brother. Lymond’s eyes were screwed shut, his mouth a line of distaste pressed firmly closed.

Finally, their plastic shells discarded in the sink, Richard saw the pill bottles and swore.

The decision never needed to be made: he had always known he would intervene, even if the moment had not previously arisen. Richard’s hands were on his brother’s jaw and cheeks, folding him and prying at his grimace like he would wrestle a dog with a bone.

“What have you done, what have you _done_,” he spoke without being aware of the words emerging from between his own gritted teeth. Beneath his clutches Lymond writhed, eel-like, but he did not lay a hand on Richard in return. He clung to the sink still, desperation injecting his wiry form with strength that Richard had never expected. Finally, ruthless in his own panic, Richard balled a fist and buried it in Lymond’s bruised and bandaged abdomen.

The sound that emerged from his brother at this treatment made the hair on Richard’s arms stand to attention, and he tottered back for a moment, taking in the curled form hanging limp and spent from the sink, one arm crooked inside the bowl. From Lymond’s lips hung one blood-tinged runnel of drool and powder, and the sight reminded Richard of what needed to be done, and done immediately.

As he moved to pick up the ragdoll form, Lymond raised his head and flinched using energy he seemed unable to spare. The flesh of his face pulled taut across his cheeks and around the sockets of his skull, highlighting the emergence of weary lines he should not yet have had. “Please,” he cried, holding Richard at bay with wide, terrified blue eyes.

Richard’s own expression mirrored the horror before him. He shook his head, all thoughts of punishment or bitterness forgotten. “No,” he said, his voice a tremor. “No. Absolutely, _no_.”

Heaving himself to the job, Richard took his little brother around the middle in a bear hug and persuaded him face the sink again. Lymond yelled at the pressure on his ribs, an open-throated howl that made Richard’s head swim with the sound of it.

He tried to coax him, he tried to force him, but in the end there was nothing but blood and spit on the white bowl, and only a few crumbs of barbiturates and aspirin. Lymond held on until he could not, and his breath became the gulping of a fish out of water, his body sinking heavily onto arms that no longer supported him away from the sink.

Richard’s grip stopped him from hitting his head against the porcelain, but Richard was soon left with the weight of death, or its near-cousin, in his arms. He was now sweaty and gasping too, shivering with the effort of the struggle, his eyes glassed over by unshed tears of panic.

He lowered Lymond in order to lift him, the lithe acrobat’s form cradled in his thick arms. Richard could no more have explained his desire to see his brother punished moments ago than he could now give words to the protectiveness that had returned to fill his muscles with warmth.

After he settled Lymond on the dishevelled bed and pulled covers up over his chest, Richard dragged a chair close to him. He clicked the reading lamp on so as to view the text of his brother’s unconscious face.

“Stay with me,” he told the silent room. “Stay with me.”


End file.
